Wendouree

Regional City

Marginal Liberal 0.1%

MP

The sitting Labor MP for Ballarat West (now Wendouree) is Sharon Knight. She was first elected at the 2010 election.

Profile

Wendouree is an urban electorate in the Ballarat metropolitan area, including central Ballarat as well as all suburbs north of Victoria Street and west of the Yarrowee River. As well as Ballarat Central, it includes Brown Hill, Black Hill, Ballarat East, Ballarat North, Nerrina, Invermay Park, Wendouree, Alfredton, Lake Gardens, Delacombe, Newington, Redan and Soldiers Hill. Covers 114.3 square kilometres. (Map)

Redistribution

Wendouree is the new name for the seat previously known as Ballarat West. The electorate gains parts of central Ballarat from the former seat of Ballarat East, but the loss of the Labor voting suburb of Sebastopol to the new seat of Buninyong has wiped out Labor's majority in Wendouree. Labor's margin of 1.1% for Ballarat West has become a tiny notional Liberal majority of 0.1% for Wendouree.

Background

The 2014 election will be the first since 1859 without an electorate containing the name Ballarat. The 2012-13 redistribution split the city between electorates named after two of the city's outer suburbs, western Wendouree and southern Buninyong. The Ballarat electorates were named East and West from 1859-1927, a single Ballarat electorate 1927-55, Ballarat North and South 1927-92 and Ballarat East and West again since 1992.

This electorate covering northern and western parts of Ballarat has been known variously as Ballarat North and Ballarat West, but has been re-named Wendouree for the 2014 election. Until 1999 it was a traditional Liberal seat, but was won by Labor's Karen Overington at the 1999 election, one of the many Labor gains in rural and regional Victoria that put the Bracks government into office.

Overington increased her majority with a 7.5% swing in 2002 followed by a 2.5% swing back to the Liberal Party in 2006. Overington retired at the 2010 election and new Labor candidate Sharon Knight retained Ballarat West despite a 5.5% swing to the Liberal Party. In 2014 Knight will be attempting to win re-election in a seat with new boundaries, a new name, and with a notional Liberal majority.

Changing Electoral Boundaries

Past results

As the graph below shows, where once the seat based in western Ballarat was more Liberal leaning, for the last two decades is has consistently recorded a Labor vote slightly above Labor's state wide 2-party preferred vote. The 2-party vote in the seat now known as Wendouree has consistently followed the state trend. If there is any state wide swing to Labor, the last two decades of voting indicate that Labor should win Wendouree.

Assessment

Likely Labor win, as chances of a Liberal victory in Wendouree relied on there being a state swing to the Coalition.

2014 Ballot Paper (7 Candidates)

Candidate Name

Party

HASTIE, Liam

Sex Party

KNIGHT, Sharon

Australian Labor Party

O'SHEA, Sheila

Rise Up Australia Party

FENN, Cielo

Family First

COLTMAN, Craig

Liberal

BARNES, Alice

Australian Greens

BUCHHOLZ, John

Australian Country Alliance

Candidates

Liam Hastie

Sex Party

Hastie currently works at a factory with a degree in psychological science. He considers himself somewhat of an amateur cultural critic and satirist, while also being partial to the more simple pleasures shared by many of his fellow regional Victorians such as country football and enjoying a few cold frothies.

Sharon Knight

Australian Labor Party

Knight undertook tertiary education while raising her young family, completing an Honours degree in Social Work and an Advanced Diploma in Business Management. Before her election to Parliament at the 2010 election, Knight managed Lifeline in Ballarat, having previously worked for local Federal MP Catherine King, and for the Ballarat Centre Against Sexual Assault. Knight has also been a member of the Pinarc board, an organisation working as a local supplier of services to people with a disability. Knight has also been involved with National Autism Australia, Emilys List, the Golden Key Society and other community groups.

Craig Coltman

Liberal

Raised and educated in Ballarat, Coltman moved to study in Melbourne before returning to continue his education at the University of Ballarat and join the family business, Coltman Mitre 10, the firm having a 122 year connection with the district. In the mid-1980s Coltman was Branch Manager of the Bacchus Marsh outlet and then project managed the construction and then the operation of a new outlet in Melton. The store went on to win the title of Mitre 10 Store of the Year. He spent 10 years as Joint Managing Director of the company with his brother. Having since sold the business, Coltman has more time to devote to another passion, fly fishing, of which he is one of Australia's leading exponents. He has represented Ballarat, Victoria and Australia in competition fly fishing since 1998, competing for Australia on 13 occasions and has been captain of the Australian team 5 times at World and Commonwealth Championships. Coltman contested this seat, then known as Ballarat West, at the 2010 election.

Alice Barnes

Australian Greens

30 year-old Barnes is Ballarat born and bred. In her school years she spent a year as an exchange student in Italy and was involved in the Ballarat Youth Council before studying Politics and Gender Studies at The University of Melbourne. She has worked overseas in community aid programs and as a teacher in Thailand, London and Mexico, with the Red Cross in an indigenous youth program on the Tiwi Islands and also worked as a History and Geography teacher in the Yarra Valley. Since returning to Ballarat she has been working as an Education Officer at Sovereign Hill. Barnes is the daughter of former Mayor of Ballarat and ex-Chair of Central Highlands Water, John Barnes.